---
title: And, even if there were, how could I catch them?' — The Orange Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: And, even if there were, how could I catch them?' Who acts: I. A sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 27, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Orange Fairy Book, Opening, part 27, sentence 82

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And, even if there were, how could I catch them?'

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** be, catch · **To what, where:** flowers

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This is a sentence of «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 27. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg3027:27:82
# text = And, even if there were, how could I catch them?'
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
3	even	even	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
4	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	6	expl	_	_
6	were	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	catch	catch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	'	'	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | I *not said here* |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **catch** | could | I | flowers *= flower* |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Orange Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 3027 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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